1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the deposition of thin films on a substrate and, more particularly, to the deposition of particular films to develop certain preselected film structural properties.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Thin film devices are of many types and may have many different uses. One class of such devices to which the present invention relates, but is not limited, is the subject of a Special Issue of the "Proceedings of the IEEE", January 1975, devoted to infrared technology for remote sensing. Particular devices of the type here involved but produced by another method are described in an article therein, beginning at p. 27, entitled "High-Performance 8-14 .mu.m Pb.sub.1.sub.-x Sn.sub.x Te Photodiodes" by Kennedy et al.
Extended epitaxial layers for use in various types of semiconductor devices can be formed by various methods such as by solid state crystal growth from a multitude of small crystals, liquid phase epitaxy, vapor phase growth and deposition from various electrolytic baths with varying success. Certain methods now employ sputtering techniques for the production of silicon and germanium diode crystals, and even for certain binary and ternary component crystals. However, in most instances it has been found to be very difficult to reliably produce multicomponent single crystals in a manner so as to provide good control over their electrical, structural, and electro-optical properties. Moreover, the methods employed for such purposes usually are very expensive and time-consuming, ordinarily requiring extensive annealing of the generated films and/or other special post-deposition treatments to render the films useful. Accordingly, there is a need for a simplified, inexpensive method of producing selected semiconductor layers of single crystal multi-component films.